Mary Poppins’ strike-me-pink raspberry jam cakes

After quite a tough day at work I decided to do some baking on Monday evening whilst Mr C worked late. I've been reading Jane Brocket's Cherry Cake and Ginger Beer for quite a few months now, but haven't actually tried that many recipes from it.

Mr C's a big raspberry jam fan and hence the recipe for Mary Poppins' strike-me-pink raspberry jam cakes seemed like an obvious choice. The recipe makes them sound quite simple to make – a soft dough, make into twelve balls and then shape each ball as if you're making a crude clay pot (like at school pottery class). Then you put half a tea spoon of jam inside each "pot" before using your fingers to seal the pot. Turn them over, place on a baking sheet, brush with milk, sprinkle with sugar and into the oven they go.

The hard part though was the sealing of the pots after putting in the jam. Possibly my dough was a bit too wet, but I found them quite difficult. The finished article though was yummy. Slightly crisp on the outside like a fresh biscuit, but slightly softer on the inside around the jam.

The one thing that this book lacks is photographs – instead Jane has used the line drawings from some of the original books that her recipes are based around. Photos or the steps or the finished article would have been a bit useful as following the recipe, but in this case the finished article was more of a surprise!

I'll definitely be making another batch sometime in the future. As Mary Poppins would have said: supercalifragilisticexpialidocious!